We have had a very festive week this week in Primary 4.

On Monday, we looked at various handwriting patterns we had previously learnt and worked on ones we felt we needed more practise on.

We made our christmas craft, which was a christmas bauble.  We were inspired by the snowglobes we made at the beginning of this term so we created miniature ones for our trees at home.  We hope you like them.

At our christmas party we loved playing pass the parcel, christmas corners, musical statues and musical bumps.  We also performed the Scottish dance we have been learning; Strip the Willow.  We loved turning of the lights at the end for an extra dance.

On Tuesday, we enjoyed watching the christmas film “The Grinch” with the whole school.  We continued working on our eportfolios. In Numeracy, we played a christmas escape room where we had to use our problem solving skills to help us escape.

On Wednesday, we practised the scottish dances Strip the Willow and the Canadian Barn Dance.  We practised our listening and talking skills by investigating what books other children in our class like.  We then chose books from the school library for other children in our class and discussed the giving and kind nature around christmas.

We practised how to wrap presents and wrote an procedural text about how to successfully wrap a present.  Hopefully they can show these steps at home and help wrap presents.

Hope you all have a lovely holidays and I will see you in the New Year. Thank you for all the kind gifts too.

Merry Christmas

Mrs Skilling

The children were so excited to start our advent calendar this week.  We have been using “spin the wheel” to pick 2 children who get a chocolate daily.

In literacy, we wrote out clear instructions to play the games we created last week.  We made sure to use bossy verbs and avoid “I” and “we” in our instructions.  We followed the success criteria of a procedural text and marked our own work.  On Wednesday, we used our writing to lead the game during our PE time.  We had time to set up, explain the rules to our teammates and then carried out our games.  At the end, we evaluated how well our teammates lead the session, listened to the instructions for our games and showed the skills we learnt in class.

We wrote wanted posters about a destroyed garden in our book “The boy who grew dragons”.

In Numeracy, we started looking at division.  We focused on dividing using arrays and equal groups.  Some of us started looking at division with remainders.

In our topic, we looked at the Tay Bridge Disaster and listened to information about what happened.  We discussed the structural properties of the bridge and what could have made it stronger.  The children then designed their own bridge discussing how they thought the bridge would survive the weather and the sea.

Hope you have a great rest of week, Mrs Skilling.

This week, primary 4 enjoyed making rainbow fruit skewers. We learnt how to prepare different fruits and then arrange them on skewers in rainbow colours. Some children have told me they made them at home too, this is so lovely to hear.

On Tuesday, we wrote the recipes with Miss Alexander.  We looked at what was important to include in a procedural text.

In numeracy, we continued on our multiplication skills and some of us looked at multiplying by 2 or 3 digits.

In PE, we focussed on dribbling in basketball/netball and then looked at scoring in the hoop.

With Miss Allan, we looked at making a 3d printed a decoration. Most children have finished theirs.

Hope you have a good rest of week and look forward to seeing some parents on Thursday night.

Mrs Skilling

This week, P4 enjoyed making their own snowglobes to go with their stories.  They used the comments from their writing to help them write an edited piece of work.

We read the story “The Great BMX Race” and identified key features of the story.  We were then able to write our own story about a sport of our choice and something going wrong.

We continued work with our class novel and wrote character profiles for some main characters.

In numeracy, we identified strategies to help us with the 3, 6 and 9 times tables and looked at the links between the three.

In IDL, we started looking at different styles of houses around Newport and the River Tay.

In Outdoor Learning, we used surveyors wheels to help us measure spaces outside and used these to help us draw a map and key features using squared paper.

In PE, we played various games with the ball skills we have learnt so far.

We continued working on our eportfolios.

Hope you have a great rest of week. Mrs Skilling.

We have had a very busy week so far. In literacy, we have been creating acrostic poems about cold weather. We also wrote a story about being trapped in a snowglobe. We continued working with paragraphs and editing our writing work.

In Numeracy, we looked at estimation and rounding and compared the difference between an estimate and an exact answer.  We looked at using a numberline, groups of, arrays and repeated addition to help us work out a multiplication equation.

In Music, we looked at more complex music and played along with our glockenspiels. We also created our own melodies along with a tune.

In Science, we continued looking at food chains and created our own food chains on string.  We also looked at habitats of animals and were able to explain how different animals adapted to different environments.

In ICT, we started work on our eportfolios and some of us uploaded our first piece of work.

Hope you all have a great rest of week.

Mrs Skilling

This week we have continued looking at adding paragraphs to our writing. We wrote an imaginative story about bonfire night with Miss Alexander and Mrs Skilling. We also looked at acrostic poems and wrote some based on fireworks. In handwriting, we looked at how “i” joins ascenders.

In numeracy, we learnt about estimation. We looked at number lines and estimated what number the arrow was pointing too. We also looked at double numbers and how this can help us estimate an answer.

We investigated different types of dances and created our own dances in groups.

In music, we started looking at singing two different parts at the same time. We loved listening to the different sound when we split up and sang the two parts together.

In PE, we practised throwing and catching drills and learnt a chest pass.

In IDL, we looked at local maps of the river Tay and Newport and compared them to maps from the 1800s. We discussed the difference between electronic and paper maps and the benefits of both. We looked at how to use an atlas and find places using coordinates.

Hope you all have a great rest of week.

Mrs Skilling

In Literacy this week, to link with a spooky theme, we did some scary stories in class.  We continued to work on describing our settings and characters. After, we looked at how to split our work into paragraphs and highlighted where there was a change in place, time or theme.

In IDL, we learnt about fishing on the River Tay and took notes while watching a short video about it.  We looked at beavers and discussed why some people (mostly farmers) would be unhappy with their reintroduction to Scotland.  We also completed a comprehension piece about them.

In Numeracy, we looked at multiplication circles and the 6 times tables.  Some of us used “groups of” to help us work out 2 or 3 times table sums. On Wednesday, we completed some spooky multiplication mosiacs using various strategies to help us work out some trickier equations.

In Science, we looked at how to categorise animals and completed a chart to show which animals had particular features.

In PE, we practised an overhand throw and played several games with a partner to challenge our aim while using this throw.

In Drama, we reinacted the story of the very enormous turnip and worked with groups to create particular scenes.

In Music, we looked at sheet music and followed along to the beat by clapping and playing our glockenspiels.

In Outdoor Learning, we looked at types of trees and identified them by their leaves.

We completed our last skills academy lesson, the children all really enjoyed this.

Hope you all have a lovely rest of week.

Mrs Skilling

 

What a brilliant start so far to the term.

In literacy, we have been looking at imaginative stories. We used pictures of forests and creatures to inspire us. On Wednesday we edited our work and some of us wrote new drafts. We analysed common mistakes focussing on conjunctions, the differences between their, there and they’re and how our descending letters should look in our writing.

We introduced our new spelling words. As a few children found it tricky glueing in their words weekly I have sent home a termly list of words. Please work on each week as we go along. If your child loses it, please let me know and I will send another copy home. In handwriting, we looked at the letter “a” to ascenders, eg al.

In numeracy, we have started looking at times tables and strategies to help us.

In IDL, we started our topic about life along the river Tay. We discussed what we would like to learn and what we already know. We watched a video about the source of the river and what animals live there. During this we improved our note taking skills. To link with this we also learnt about the water cycle and how rivers start.

In music, we started our glockenspiel course and started looking at how to read timings of notes on sheet music.

In PE, we looked at the underhand pass and practice by ourselves and with partners with different objects and balls. We also used these skills to play a game of dodgeball.

We had our first skills academy. The children all seemed so pleased with their first lesson. They have two more this week and one next week.

Thank you P4 for a great first week back, looking forward to next week.

Mrs Skilling

We have had a fantastic week in P4.

We had Mrs Alexander help support our writing lesson this week.  We all created amazing posters about vertebrates and invertebrates using our skills for writing.

We analysed and evaluated our targets and wrote our reflections on our learning this term.  Some of us managed to type this up ready to be uploaded on our eportfolios.

We all signed up for Skills academy lessons. This starts the first week back.  We chose from board games, puppets, art, football skills and Kapla.

We completed a paired talk about our writing and we were able to take notes about what our partner told us.

In numeracy, we continued to look at the split strategy with subtraction but this time we looked at how numbers carry over.  We also completed work based on our own targets to help us evaluate how well we had improved this term.

In outdoor learning, we created animal pictures with paper, leaves and glue.

We loved learning a trickier pattern on the glockenspiels this week in Music.

In PE, we played shipwreck, hoop it up and streets and alleys.  This continued our teambuilding skills and everyone participated well.

Thank you so much P4 for a first lovely term with you, I look forward to seeing you after the holidays.  Have a great rest of week and enjoy your holidays when they come.

Mrs Skilling.

We have had a great week so far in P4.

In literacy, we read and highlighted key facts about recycling and created posters to share why recycling is important. We also created stories about our gardens and used descriptive words to write about things we like to do in our gardens.

In numeracy, we started looking at split strategies using subtraction and looked at missing number problems.  We also discussed the importance of using the inverse of a sum to check our answers.

In science, we started looking at the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates.

In music, we continued our practise of glockenspiels. We looked particularly at the notes C, G and F and looked at timing our hits to the beat.

In outdoor learning, we looked at drawing leaves and sketching the extra details we could see.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your week.

Mrs Skilling.